


Been with the Devil in the Devil's Resting Place

by Amazing_E_ko



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, One-Sided Relationship, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 09:05:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6417418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amazing_E_ko/pseuds/Amazing_E_ko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The development of Karen and Frank's relationship from Matt's perspective, as his own life goes slowly downhill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Been with the Devil in the Devil's Resting Place

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this is a weird fic. It probably has too much Matt>Karen to be strictly a Kastle fic, and it has way too much Kastle to be a Matt/Karen fic. It emerged from my twin iddy impulses to see Matt Murdoch suffer for his generally terrible treatment of his friends in Season Two and my desire to pull at the thread of how Karen and Frank might get together. It ended up being a very uncharitable version of Matt, a version of him that I don't think the show will ever touch, who has given in to a lot of his worst instincts. It was really interesting to write, though. (Elektra is not mentioned in this fic, but she definitely haunts it, and I think a lot of Matt's bad decisions flow from her death.)

Matt walks with the devil every time he wears his mask. He knows this. He feels it like an echo, like the movement of air against his skin. He never used to think of the devil as literal, but now he has his doubts. When the dark delight of retribution flares in the pit of his stomach, he wonders to what degree the costume makes the man. 

Given this, he cannot blame Karen for leaving him, though she still claims fervently that she didn't, she hasn't. Sometimes they meet, for coffee or drinks. He reads her articles. They trade information, when it's relevant. But her presence in his life is rapidly dwindling, from a roar to a whisper. Or perhaps it's the other way around. He is fading from her life, retreating to the safety of darkness and shadows, where he can protect her without the risk of bringing the devil close to her. He has only the faintest memories of the sun, now, but her voice and her scent and her heart are pure sunlight to him, and he will not see them stained with even a trace of darkness.

One night in mid-March, when Winter's shell is cracking and the first fresh scents of Spring are seeping in, and Matt is on the roof of her apartment listening to the steady thrum of her heart, he hears a noise. Someone is at her window. He shifts, about to pounce, when the shape and scent of the figure, the deep dull thump of the beating heart, the low growl of breath, give him pause and he realises who it is. Frank Castle, the Punisher, is standing at Karen's window, tapping softly.

Her heart accelerates as she turns, and then accelerates further. Dampened by walls, Matt cannot smell her, cannot hear her breathing, and he is not sure how she feels in that moment, whether fear or excitement is driving her. Hearts are faithful time-keepers, but emotionally unreliable. Then the window slides up, wood creaking slightly, and Frank steps through.

Matt moves over to the fire escape, where he will be able to hear more, and tells himself that it's just a precaution. He trusts Karen to make her own decisions, but he trusts himself to keep her safe. The Punisher, who is beyond redemption, deserves no place in her shining world. Of that, he is sure.

'Coffee?' Karen says, and the faintest clink of cups rises up to him, the shooshing slither of pouring liquid. 

There is silence, while they drink. Karen's heart is still fluttering, but slowing down, and that extra speed might just be her body adapting to the caffeine intake, especially so late at night.

'You do brew a good one,' Castle says, and Karen half-laughs. If Matt were being poetic, he would compare it to bells, but that isn't the truth. Her laugh is an extension of her voice, the more lovely for being human and not angelic.

'So,' she says, moving over to her computer, 'what do you have for me tonight?'

Something inside Matt that he didn't know was squeezed tight unclenches. This is all they are. Castle is nothing more than an informant. He still doesn't like it, but it makes sense. Karen has always wanted the truth, and been willing to put herself in far more danger than she needs to if it will help her get there. It galls him that she lets the Punisher into her home, but it isn't like she can meet him in a coffee shop.

The city is calling to him, and Matt has already stayed too long. Feeling his darker self rise, he leaves the warmth of Karen's rooftop and heads out into the night.

***

Matt doesn't find the Punisher at Karen's house again for another month. Whether this means he hasn't been there, or that Matt hasn't seen him he doesn't know, can't know without walking in and letting the lingering scents in the air paint the picture for him. And Karen has not invited him to enter her house in a very long time.

Castle is already inside when he arrives, and so Matt perches on the fire escape, just out of sight, to listen. Just for a moment, he tells himself. It's greedy and rude, but he misses Karen, and hearing her talk to someone else will tell him more than he would find out if she were alone.

Karen is not at her computer tonight. Her voice comes from where he remembers her sofa is, while Castle's comes from the direction of the kitchen. Karen sounds tired, and more than tired. Her voice is flat and sad. Matt wonders if she has been crying. He wonders if Castle made her cry, and his hand coils into a fist so tight it almost hurts. If he has, they will be having an extremely painful conversation when he leaves.

'Thank you,' she says, her voice derailing Matt's building ire. 'There isn't really anyone else I could have talked to about this.'

'Don't have to thank me, ma'am,' Castle says sardonically.

'You know how it is with anniversaries,' she says, perhaps agreeing with him, perhaps not. Matt wishes he had arrived five minutes earlier. He does not know what anniversary could have pulled tears from Karen. It chafes at him that Castle knows something about her that he does not.

There is a long moment of silence from the apartment. Karen's heart speeds up, and she lets out a long breath, forcibly calming herself down.

'You said you had some photos to show me.' Castle's voice has moved. He is by the sofa now, closer to Karen. Matt wants to think that her racing heart is subconscious fear, but he remembers how her heart once beat so hard and fast for him, and doubt flickers in his gut.

'Yeah,' Karen says, her voice lower, softer. No longer speaking across a room, but to somebody next to her. Castle must be sitting next to her, or leaning over her shoulder, and Matt likes neither scenario. Either way he is too close to Karen, close enough to breathe in the expensive shampoo that is her one true luxury. He is close enough to feel the heat of her skin, and to hear the soft hiss of her breath. Close enough to kiss her, if she turned her head.

Matt wonders, suddenly, if this was how Foggy had felt. Foggy's crush on Karen was always obvious to him, though Karen herself never seemed to notice it. And her own feelings for Matt were clear enough that Foggy had never pushed. But he wonders now how hard it was for Foggy to be gracious, to let her slide through his fingers without one resentful gesture or attempt to cling. A wave of longing rolls over him, and he misses his old life more than he ever thought he would. That easy intimacy between the three of them is gone forever. He always knew it was doomed, and yet he never treasured it enough. He wishes briefly, hopelessly, painfully, for one more chance to explain himself, to tell him that he did this for them, so that they would be safe, because while he is willing to gamble with his own soul, he was never willing to gamble with their souls.

Karen and Castle have been talking, quietly, about the photographs. He wasn't really listening.

'What about this one?' Karen says. 'Frank? Frank?'

There is a moment of silence, and Matt itches to move just a few feet and look in on them. But the Punisher is a man with a refined sense of paranoia, and Matt knows he would give himself away. Then Karen laughs, the false, nervous laugh she gives when she is embarrassed.

'I don't think I can tell you anything else you don't already know,' Castle says, shifting with a grunt. 'It's time for me to go, ma'am, and for you to go to bed.'

'Worried I'll lose my beauty sleep?' Karen says drily, and Matt knows suddenly that she must look awful now, her eyes red from crying, her hair at the end of its wash cycle, hanging in faintly greasy strands around her face, lines of exhaustion etched into her face. He also knows this doesn't make her any less beautiful.

Castle must know it too. He doesn't reply, but the breath goes out of him in one long whoof. Karen laughs, and stands up. Frank is moving towards the window, so Matt scuttles up to the roof. The window slides open, and the trapped scents of Karen's apartment flow out into the night. Matt catches a blast. Some of it is familiar - coffee, paper, floor cleaner and her favourite brand of fabric softener - but some of it is new. The Punisher smells of gun oil and spray paint and leather. Underneath those scents hormones simmer in the cocktail of their body heat, too far away for Matt to read them.

'Would you listen if I told you to stay safe?' Karen says.

'Would you listen if I told you to stay out of trouble?' Castle replies.

'Right.' Karen pauses, then puts a hand on Castle's arm. 'Goodnight, Frank.'

Castle doesn't move an inch until she takes her hand away.

'Goodnight ma'am.' He steps away, and Matt wonders for a moment if he will climb upwards, if they will have to talk, but he heads down towards the street, as Matt had assumed he would, and the confrontation is again delayed.

'Someday,' Karen says, speaking quietly enough that Matt doesn't think she intends Frank to hear, 'you will call me Karen.'

Then she shuts the window and goes to bed, and Daredevil and the Punisher become their seperate masks, their seperate ideals of justice.

***

Karen's fire escape smells of blood. There is blood on her windowsill, and on the frame. Matt doesn't need to ask whose blood it is. That much is clear from the voices inside.

'Have the painkillers kicked in yet?' Karen says. She is near the sofa, and it sounds like she's kneeling, because her voice is muffled by the fabric.

'Just starting to,' Frank says. 'Don't worry about it. Think you can stitch me up?'

Karen voice, when she replies, sounds halfway between frustration and panic.

'I haven't done this before. I know the theory, but I've never actually done it.'

'Don't worry about scarring,' Castle says. 'Not like I was beautiful anyway.'

Karen sighs, very loudly and pointedly.

Matt doesn't hear the needle going in, but he imagines it. In the silence, he envisions her hands pressing against Castle's skin, sliding over the muscles, sticky with his blood. He thinks of his own scars, and how it felt to have Claire stitch them up. Fury boils in his stomach. Claire was a nurse, and however kind and compassionate she could be, was always a professional in her work. Karen is just an ordinary woman. She should have no part in this.

'There,' Karen says, 'that's, well, that's the best I can do.'

''s long as I'm not bleeding anymore,' Castle says. His voice is slightly slurred and sleepy. The drugs must be kicking in.

'Let me clean you up and then you can go to bed.'

'What?' The Punisher says exactly what Matt is thinking.

'You have circles under your eyes so dark it looks like someone was punching you. Which, also, they were.' Karen's tone is brisk, but Matt thinks that she is trying very hard not to shout. 'Your body is at the end of its rope. You need sleep. In a real bed.'

'I'm not taking yours, ma'am.' Castle would sound more convincing if he weren't muttering into a cushion.

'Yes, you are.' Matt hears a splash of water, and the sound of a towel being rung out. 'This isn't a discussion. You came to me for help, which means you don't get to set terms and conditions.'

'I wouldn't have come if I'd known you were going to be a hardass about it.'

Karen doesn't bother to reply. Matt thinks she may actually have rolled her eyes.

'Come on,' she says, 'up.'

Her breathing shifts as she feels Castle's weight leaning on her, and her heart speeds up a little. Matt edges closer, trusting to the drugs and tiredness to dull the Punisher's senses, and looks in her window. She is tucked under Castle's arm, not so much supporting him as acting like a living crutch. There is a smear of blood on her temple - she must have put a hand to her head at some point - and the old blankets draped across the sofa to protect it are likewise soaked with blood.

She leads the Punisher into her room, and Matt hears her lay him out across the bed, hears his breathing settle almost at once into the slow and steady rhythm of sleep. Karen shifts slightly, and then gets up slowly, so as not to wake him. She comes back into the living room, shuts the door behind her, presses her hands against her face, sinks to the ground, and starts to cry.

Never has Matt wanted more to comfort her. He has to concentrate hard to resist the urge to knock on her window, to simply open it, let himself in and take her in his arms. It is terrible to see her like this, her light dimmed by pain and sorrow, tangled in the bitter thorns of the world.

After about five minutes Karen pushes herself to her feet. She strips the blankets from the bed and takes them into the bathroom. She is gone for a while, and when she emerges she is wearing a dressing-gown and her hair and face are clean. She makes up a bed on the couch, turns out the lights, and gets under the covers. In a moment, she too is asleep.

***

When Matt comes by in the morning, Karen has already left for work and the Punisher is still asleep. Matt hovers outside in the chill dawn air until he stirs. He rolls over with a groan and some swearing. There is silence for a moment, and the rustle of paper. Matt realises that Karen must have left a note. He hopes it tells Castle to get the fuck out of her apartment, but he already knows that it doesn't. Castle crumples the note into a ball, drinks from a glass beside the bed and sets it down, then rolls over and goes back to sleep.

Matt goes home and does the same, but he comes back a little before Karen is due to get home. She lets herself in carefully, quietly, and moves towards the bedroom. When she sees Castle still sprawled across her bed she sighs, and Matt knows it is relief. It feels like a knife has been jabbed into his ribs. If had told her, right at the start, who he was, would he be in her bed now, in her care? Could he have brought himself to do that to her? No, he thinks. This is wrong. And when the Punisher leaves, Matt will make him aware of that fact.

Karen heads back into the kitchen and puts some soup on the stove to heat up. She toasts and butters some bread to go with it, eats half, and takes the other half into the bedroom. Castle finally stirs when she enters.

'Hey,' she says. 'Thanks for not leaving.'

'I wanted to,' Castle says. 'I shouldn't be here. But my body had other ideas.'

'I made soup. Think you can eat?' Matt hears the gurgle of Castle's stomach from the roof.

Karen sits on the edge of the bed as the Punisher pushes himself up and takes the bowl. He eats with a vigour and energy that tells Matt his remarkable ability to heal from wounds in record time is unchanged. He even scrapes the spoon around the bowl, cleaning it carefully and thoroughly.

'That was good,' Castle says. 'I'll go now.'

'You will not,' Karen says. 'I want to look at that wound first.'

'Not going to try and force me to stay another night?'

'I am not stupid enough to try the impossible,' Karen says, her voice resigned. 'Come on, lean over and let me look at your back.'

Castle shifts forward, and Karen moves. Matt is straining his senses to their breaking point, and he thinks he hears the slip of skin on skin. He wonders where she is touching him. He thinks of the softness of her fingertips, the gentleness.

'Thank you,' Karen says.

'What are you thanking me for?' Castle sounds genuinely confused.

'For coming to me. I worry. I know you don't want me to, but I do. And it feels like a relief to know that if things get bad enough, you will come to me.'

Castle moves so quickly and suddenly that neither Karen nor Matt has time to react. He twists around, catching her shoulder in one hand and her chin with the other, and from the way Karen gasps, Matt suspects that his grip is not especially gentle.

'Why do you keep letting me in?' he says, not angry but frustrated, straining at the end of some inner leash. 'You know how dangerous this is, how dangerous I am. What makes you want to let me stay?'

Karen says nothing for a long moment. Her heart is beating fast, and so is Castle's. They must be looking at each other, and it makes Matt feel sick.

'You understand me,' she says. 'There is no one else in the world who understands me like you do. I didn't know I needed it until it happened, but when I did I realised I didn't want it to end.'

There is more silence. Matt feels it building in his stomach. If he were in the room he would be able to feel the palpable tension in the air between them, the trembling currents of air made by their intermingling breath. He hears tiny shifts of fabric, the slight movement of Karen's throat as she swallows, and Matt knows as it happens that Karen is leaning forward, knows exactly when their lips meet, hears their hearts throbbing. He hears Castle's hand sliding through Karen's hair, pulling gently on it to press her closer to him. His other hand slides down her arm to her wrist, and then Castle pulls it up, and leans away from her mouth to press his lips to her palm, her fingertips, the inside of her wrist. Matt listens with such a terrible intensity that he can almost believe it is his mouth on Karen's skin, her head pressed into the crook of his shoulder, each exhale flaring against his collarbone. But he is not the one she is reaching out to.

The devil at Matt's back clamours in his ears, and he forces himself to leave.

***

He finds Castle in the early hours of the morning, in an alley filled with the reek of garbage and the steam of a laundrette.

The Punisher is crouched in the shadows, watching two men standing on the road through the scope of a rifle. Matt gives him no time to react, slamming his foot into Castle's back and then raining blows on his shoulders.

'What the fuck, Red?' Castle says, snarling. He brings the butt of his rifle around in a sweep, and Matt has to leap backwards to avoid being hit with it.

'Stay away from Karen Page,' Matt says. 'Don't ever go near her again.'

The two men have heard the noise and taken off, running as fast as they can. Frank glares after them, then turns his attention back to Matt.

'Do you spy on her?' he asks coldly. 'Don't remember her asking for that.'

'I watch over her,' Matt says. 'I keep her safe from everything that might hurt her. Myself included.'

The Punisher stares at him.

'Fuck off,' he says at last, and turns to leave.

Matt's rage snaps its chain and he leaps at Castle's back, determined to show him how serious he is. His anger makes him stupid, and the gun hits him properly, jabbing into his stomach and knocking him back, winded. Before he can move Castle's knee is on his back and the barrel of the gun is pressed against his neck.

'You know,' Castle says, almost conversationally, 'I once told Karen she should hold onto you. Keep you close. Thought you were someone who'd be good for her.' He spits into the dirt by Matt's head. 'Some fucking fool I was. So let me make this real clear. Karen is a grown woman. She is brave as hell and incredibly reckless, and someday she is going to get herself killed because she cannot leave a bad thing alone. And that is fucking terrifying, but it is her choice to make. You don't know the half of what she is if you think you get to make her decisions for her.'

'She deserves better,' Matt hisses. 'She's one of the few good people in this world. I will not let you drag her down to your level.'

Castle pauses.

'That,' he says, 'is some fucking pedestal you've put her on. Jesus fucking Christ, Red, no wonder she won't let you in.' He digs his knee into Matt's back a little more. 'So here's what's going to happen. I'm not going to hurt you, because it would make Karen sad. She's nice like that. However, if you decide to pull this bullshit again, I will shoot you without hesitation. And for fuck's sake, stop spying on her.'

He gets up with a heavy sigh and walks away. Matt lies on the ground for a minute, wondering when his life went so badly wrong.

***

He goes back once more, just to be sure. Just because he can't resist. He sits on the roof and listens to the faint murmur of their voices.

'Seriously the ugliest painting I've ever seen. I don't know what possessed Andrea to buy it. Her photographs are amazing, but her taste in art is deplorable.' She laughs, as though she has never felt pain. Matt feels his heart break a little more.

'Hey,' Castle says, quietly. 'Do you know that Red spys on you sometimes?'

Karen falls silent, and Matt freezes. Does he know that Matt is here now, or is this a coincidence?

'Yeah,' Karen says. 'Sorry, I should have warned you.'

'Why don't you tell him to stop?'

'I thought about it,' Karen says. 'But if I asked him to, and he agreed, he'd be lying. I couldn't bear to have him lie to me again.'

She sighs, and moves slightly. Matt wonders if she is lying in Castle's arms now, pressed against his shoulder. Maybe her feet are in his lap instead, or maybe they're just sitting side by side, arms and shoulders and knees brushing against each other.

'He loves me,' Karen says, after a long moment. 'I guess in some way I still love him too. But I don't even know if I can explain how meaningless that kind of love is to me now.' She stops talking, hmms deep in the back of her throat. 'I guess that's not very fair. I keep meaning to find it in myself to sit down and talk it all out with him. I think we could be friends again, if I made the effort. But it's so much work, and I'm so busy.' She yawns, as if to emphasise this point. 'Someday,' she says. 'Some day soon.'

There is a long silence. Eventually Matt hears the faint sussurus of their lips and hands and knows they have forgotten him.

It is April now, and the air is warm, but Matt feels cold. He is very alone, high above the cars and chatter of Hell's Kitchen. He imagines himself as a void of noise, an aural shadow stretching out its wings across the rooftoops. His personal devil leans over his shoulder, whispering in his ear. There is blood to be shed tonight, violence to be enacted against those whose only language is violence. This is why he lives. He lives to save lives, even if it means destroying his own. Someday, someday soon, he thinks, he will die. Maybe they will miss him then. Maybe they will weep for him. He is terribly lonely, and that is exactly as it should be.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title of the fic is from The Devil's Resting Place, by Laura Marling, which is an amazing song in its own right, but also one that resonates deeply for me when I think about Matt, Karen and Frank. What I like about it is that it can be taken three ways. First, that Karen has been with Matt, who is of course called the Devil, second, that she has been with Frank, who is a far more demonic character than Matt himself, and third, as the song takes it, that she has experience with evil, or that she has become somehow "impure" in a way that prevents her from having a genuine relationship with the man referred to in the song. I want to write a long piece of meta at some point about all the parallels between Matt/Karen and Karen/Frank, but for now I'll say that I think the crucial difference between them is that Karen sees an idealised version of herself with Matt, a person she wants to be rather than a person she is, while with Frank she finds a version of herself that includes the ugly things she has done. It goes without saying that I find the second Karen far more interesting than the first. Ultimately, the Karen I am interested in is the one who puts the truth of her self and her own life ahead of any of her relationships, but I think as it stands Frank offers her the best chance of getting there.


End file.
